Meet Marielle

Welcome to Spiced Anecdotes!

Hello there. My name is Marielle. What’s yours?

It’s lovely to meet you.

Let me tell you the story of how I got to be the writer of Spiced Anecdotes. Maybe some of my struggles will resonate with you, and you might just be inclined to make a few small changes so you can improve your life, and definitely improve your health.

Food has played a huge part in my life, but up until 2012, the relationship I had with food was always a negative one. What I ate was processed, full of fat and sugar and made me generally lethargic and fat. In 2011 I slowly began turning all that around. After I struggled with mild depression for a few years my eating became terrible; at times eating too much and at others starving myself due to Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) attacks. My husband saved my life by introducing me to healthier foods and a healthier way of eating but he also introduced me to Masterchef. By giving me his full support and appreciation and of course by letting me experiment with our dinners each night my cooking improved out of sight and my hubby got the best meals of his life. If it weren’t for my husband, my life and my passions would be very different. Thank you Nawaf!

The Influence of TV Cooking Shows

Masterchef, gave me the tools to create a new passion for life! And to begin my positive relationship with food. I always wanted to cook using fresh foods and ingredients but I was intimidated by them, and I would leave them in my fridge looking longingly at them, not knowing what to do or too scared to try them. Fresh produce always looked too good to touch and I wasted so much before I discovered that there was no need for me to be so scared.

I loved watching the show each night and I literally absorbed the skills and techniques shown on the show. I took note of the food and flavour combinations and experimented with our meals. I failed a lot. I cried a lot. Even got burnt once or twice. I just didn’t know how to make a meal fantastic, and that’s what Masterchef gave me – the power to change, to appreciate, to accomplish until I finally made amazing meals! And thats exactly what I want to give to you; the power to change beginning by cooking your own meals.

Masterchef (Channel Ten) has not been the only influence in my food journey. I started watching My Kitchen Rules (Channel 7), Food Safari (SBS), River Cottage (ABC), Shane Delia’s Spice Journey (SBS), Miguel Maestro from the Living Room (Channel Ten) and Every Day Gourmet (Channel Ten), Alive and Cooking (Channel 9) and all of Jamie Oliver’s TV cooking shows (including 30 Minute Meals, Jamie’s Christmas, Jamie and Jimmy’s Food Fight Club and Save with Jamie).

Jamie Oliver’s Influence and Ethos

Jamie Oliver has been a big influence along my positive food journey as well. His meals are full of fresh ingredients and the way he talks about food as being delicious and gorgeous made me try new things his way too. His way of cooking is much more accessible to us as home cooks than the chefy world of Masterchef because he uses mostly normal ingredients from the supermarket and that’s why you’ll see me link to his recipes often. But it wasn’t only Jamie’s recipes that drew me along this road to better health. I love the way Jamie Oliver is so passionate about getting people, communities and nations healthier by teaching them to cook. After watching Jamie’s TED talk, I wanted to do my part and help the world get healthier.

My Teaching Ethos and Hopes for You

I have always wanted to help people and by pulling apart the techniques, tricks and tips about cooking I am hoping that I can help you if you want to cook but are too scared, just like I used to be. As part of my kitchen stories I want to share the unwritten parts of recipes and of general kitchen work that makes cooking so hard for some, yet doesn’t need to be with the right teacher. I want to teach you to have a healthier life through the foods you eat. And then maybe the food corporations will hear the people, and the communities, and the nations, and change the way they provide us with our foods. And its time we send these messages because enough is enough. But lets not get ahead of ourselves, lets start making a change in you, one small anecdote at a time, to help you become less scared of the kitchen. Trust me, you want to make that change!

Spiced Anecdotes

My tastes have changed on this journey towards that of the exotic – well exotic to what it used to be. Spices conjure the exotic for me, and the need to spice up my life, spice up my food and to use numerous spices has lead me to call the blog Spiced Anecdotes. I want to help you to learn about spices and to give you ideas for how to use them in your everyday cooking. All my recipes will include a herb or spice of some sort but it doesn’t mean you need a kitchen full of equipment or fancy ingredients. Budget cooking is as important to me as the actual taste of the food because I don’t have a lot of spare cash, and cooking in a budget-conscious way means you think carefully about what you’re eating, where it comes from, and you end up with less waste.

So, open your mind to the possibilities of fresh foods and spices and I’ll detangle the web of cooking jargon and techniques to help you create a healthier future for yourself and the world.

Check out these posts to learn more about what this blog is all about: